{"id":121051,"date":"2025-11-06T12:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T12:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/121051\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T12:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T12:31:08","slug":"this-governments-legacy-for-transport-in-auckland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/121051\/","title":{"rendered":"This government\u2019s legacy for transport in Auckland"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is an op-ed I wrote which ran in the NZ Herald on November 3.<\/a> It\u2019s turning out to be even more topical than ever \u2013 read to the end for an update with recent events\u2026<\/p>\n

In July 2016, dignitaries geared up to ride along a brand new cycleway on Quay Street in Auckland. They included the Prime Minister himself, John Key, who proclaimed<\/a> that one of the keys to Auckland\u2019s growth was \u201cmaking sure that it\u2019s a place that people can get around and have fun and enjoyment, and part of that is the cycleways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quay St is now one of the city\u2019s busiest bike paths and, as an opinion piece suggested in 2017<\/a>, \u201cSir John Key\u2019s legacy may be his cycleways.\u201d But the current National-led government\u2019s transport legacy for Auckland will be the polar opposite of the pragmatic approach of Key and then Minister of Transport Simon Bridges.<\/p>\n

John Key & Simon Bridges on the opening of the interim Quay St cycleway the last National Government funded<\/p>\n

Instead, this government is funnelling millions of dollars to consultants to design frankly unaffordable billion-dollar mega-motorways. Meanwhile, a struggling construction sector faces the ongoing collapse of the pipeline of smaller, smarter projects.<\/p>\n

This is due largely to one person: Simeon Brown.<\/p>\n

As Minister for Transport from November 2023 until January 2025, Brown rewrote the Government Policy on Land Transport (GPS), gutting all new funding for walking and cycling, and snatching funds intended for hundreds of shovel-ready locally significant projects to pour into a few overscoped expressways.<\/p>\n

Worse, Brown imposed unprecedentedly detailed mandates against multi-modal design, such as forbidding \u2018local roads\u2019 funding being used for walking and cycling improvements.<\/p>\n

In Auckland, as in other places, Brown\u2019s diktats wreaked havoc on the pipeline of long-planned transport projects. One high-profile example: the long-awaited fix for \u201cNew Zealand\u2019s worst intersection\u201d, the dangerous Hill St crossroads in Warkworth in the National Party stronghold of Kaipara ki Mahurangi.<\/p>\n

The Hill Street upgrade emerged from years of community co-design, and coordinated with water infrastructure upgrades in order to \u201cdig once\u201d. But in November 2024, NZTA declined Auckland Transport\u2019s (AT) request for funding. Why? Brown decreed that because it included safety upgrades that contravened his GPS<\/a>, the project needed to be re-designed to ensure funding. Locals were appalled.<\/p>\n

Another highly-visible aspect of the Minister\u2019s culture-war transport crusade: the blanket speed limit increases forced on towns and cities by his rewritten Speed Rule, with ratepayers footing the bill. Brown\u2019s rewrite of the Speed Rule shocked expert observers, as a perverse swerve away from all evidence and official advice, which also repudiated his pre-election promises to raise speeds \u201conly where it was safe to do so\u201d.<\/p>\n

A key part of the Speed Rule required cities to undo any speed reductions from 2020 that involved the presence of a school. To widespread dismay, AT obediently complied, reverting over a thousand residential streets from 30km\/h back up to 50km\/h, affecting more than a hundred schools \u2013 including a quiet cul-de-sac outside the Blind and Low Vision Network\u2019s Manurewa campus.<\/p>\n

In June, Councillor Shane Henderson quizzed an AT lawyer on the logic, or lack thereof, of Brown\u2019s new Speed Rule. Let me get this straight, Henderson asked. \u201cIf we lowered speeds to protect children, it gets captured [by the rule] and the speeds [must be] raised. If we didn\u2019t lower speeds to protect children, the safer speeds can stay. Is that correct?\u201d AT\u2019s lawyer agreed: \u201cThat\u2019s how the rule is drafted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based on AT\u2019s evaluation of its Safe Speeds Programme, these reversals mean an estimated 564 people will be needlessly killed or seriously injured in our biggest city over the next 10 years. An added outrage is that even by Brown\u2019s favoured measure of \u2018productivity\u2019, safe speeds were a huge success. AT\u2019s economic assessment estimated<\/a> that every dollar spent on safer speeds returned $9 in benefits. And a May 2025 AustRoads study<\/a> enumerated the many wider benefits to the freight industry, local businesses, and traffic flow.<\/p>\n

Editorial cartoon by Rod Emmerson for the NZ Herald September 2024<\/p>\n

AT\u2019s safety programme was world class, reducing deaths and serious injuries by over 30% where it was implemented. In December last year, the programme won an international award. Brown immediately retorted via media that the prestigious award was \u2018woke\u2019, reflecting the years he has spent, in opposition and then as Minister, as the tip of the spear in riling up culture war battles and spreading disinformation about lower speed limits.<\/p>\n

Again and again, Brown shrugged off expertise and evidence. Although minister for scarcely more than a year, his tenure will likely be recorded as one of the most harmful in this country\u2019s history. The greatest irony is that his petty culture-war legacy of cancelled projects, now handed to Chris Bishop to salvage, means the government will struggle to start, let alone finish, many transport projects before the next election.<\/p>\n

Hence their endless reannouncements of the same old RoNS.<\/p>\n

Whereas, smaller, faster transport projects win hearts and minds across the board. They also give you a chance to cut plenty of ribbons and give crowd-pleasing speeches. That\u2019s something Key and Bridges clearly understood, when they jumped on their bikes back in 2016.<\/p>\n

And here he goes again\u2026<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, Simeon Brown decided this week \u2013 just one month after a jubilant post on 1 October proclaiming<\/a> \u201cHow good is the new Reeves Road flyover\u201d \u2013 to lobby Auckland Transport for a last-minute redesign of R\u0101 Hihi\/ the Reeves Road Flyover intersection.<\/a><\/p>\n

He\u2019s claiming the brand new layout is poorly designed, on account of some current congestion in the evenings.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Of course, what\u2019s happening is that the flyover is doing exactly what it was always going to do \u2013 move the main intersection (and thus the congestion) from T\u012b Rakau Drive to Pak\u016branga Road.<\/p>\n

Which is exactly what AT stated was going to happen back in 2016, when announcing that the (previously scrapped) flyover was being revived after intense political lobbying:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Reeves Road flyover will not solve traffic congestion in the area. However it is highly effective at offering significant local congestion relief on the roads outside Pakuranga town centre. Shifting traffic off those roads allows the busway and cycle lanes to be built on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s letter dives right into the details, pressuring AT to redesign the project at the last minute \u2013 something that always comes at great cost, but who pays? You can also see Brown ramping up one of his favourite culture wars, attempting to blame a (currently non-existent) planned stretch of cycleway<\/a> for the traffic issues, and claiming the space is urgently needed for yet another traffic lane.<\/p>\n

The intersection in question: aerial image by Anton Benadie, via the Eastern Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m definitely sure Brown\u2019s culture war diktat for \u201cjust one more\u201d traffic lane will totally work to reduce congestion this time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A widely shared (for good reasons) cartoon by C\u00f4te (2017)<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s good to see (at least initially in this case), AT has put out a very sensible response<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith tens of thousands of vehicles a day using roads in the area, a major change like this can have impacts on the wider roading network, particularly when further work on the Eastern Busway, to replace utilities on T\u012b R\u0101kau Drive at the intersection with Pak\u016branga Highway, involves temporary traffic diversions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntegration of new major infrastructure can take several weeks to settle in to new patterns as user behaviours change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Small said Auckland Transport is taking a number of actions to sort out the issues, including reviewing the design of the intersection and a potential third eastbound lane on Pak\u016branga Rd.<\/p>\n

A new layout, especially one that\u2019s not yet complete, will always need time to bed in, as the people become familiar with it, and transport agencies work to optimise signal timings, and the like.<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s attempt at preemptively reshaping this new piece of roading \u2013 based on a complete misunderstanding of how transport actually works \u2013 is incredibly counterproductive. Hopefully AT won\u2019t take his direction in whatever review is happening.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll aim to take a deeper look at the flyover situation next week. For now, suffice to say that this kind of hands-on-the-wheel takeover has been Brown\u2019s modus operandi for the last few years, to the point that transport officials have started to pre-empt his meddling<\/a> and try to proactively assuage his whims (with complete disregard for consultation outcomes, community preference, evidence, or indeed reality).<\/p>\n

Regardless of what happens with R\u0101 Hihi, and unfortunately for all of us, the compound legacy of Brown\u2019s overreaching tenure will be felt across the years to come, even as more reasonable and pragmatic politicians try to get back to actually making progress on freeing people from traffic.<\/p>\n

This post, like all our work, is brought to you by the Greater Auckland crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers and fans. If you\u2019d like to support our work, you can\u00a0join our circle of supporters here<\/a>, or support us on\u00a0Substack.<\/a><\/p>\n

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